Pretoria - A survey among 30 000 South African households found most South Africans are happy with services provided by the country’s police and courts, but not by the country’s prisons, Statistician General Pali Lehohla said on Tuesday.

Presenting the Victims Of Crime Survey (VOCS), which looked at public perceptions of the criminal justice system, Lehohla revealed :”The study found that the majority of households in the country rated courts (64.3 percent) and police (59.2 percent) positively, while about half (50.2 percent) of households held a negative perception about Correctional Services.”

The sentencing of offenders was most likely to influence households’ views of the country’s courts.

“The perception that the sentences passed were too lenient on offenders tended to tarnish the image of the courts,” said Lehohla.

“More than three quarters of households held the opinion that many people who are guilty were not sent to prison.”

While the levels of satisfaction with police remained relatively high at 59.2 percent, it was down from the 2011 levels of 64.6 percent.

“While factors such as decreasing crime trends, police visibility, and prompt police response evoked satisfaction with the work done by police, the perceptions that the police do not respond on time, they are lazy, and that they are corrupt, tended to influence the public’s poor rating of the police.”

Most households who participated in the survey were not happy with the work done by Correctional Services.

“About 65 percent of households did not have confidence in the ability of Correctional Services to rehabilitate offenders.”